The acronym ISTDP is internationally used for Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy
Welcome to our platform!
This website intends to function as a meeting place for all psychotherapists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, marital therapists, who acknowledge the value of this kind of therapy and who acknowledge that ISTDP should be administered appropriately and responsively and should be tailored to the specific problems and needs of the patient.
Therefore, one of the functions of this website is that it can also function as a platform on which ISTDP therapists from various countries could exchange their professional experiences. This part of the website, the Forum, is only open to therapists who have subscribed to be a participant on this platform.
Next to information about this particular psychotherapy school, you will be able to find a list of accredited ISTDP therapists and their mailing addresses, you will find information about ISTDP training activities, continuous education programs, workshops, seminars, etc. All educational programs, which are listed on this website are organized and accredited by us, or are organized by our international colleagues with whom we cooperate. All our educational activities are open to licensed colleagues who work in the psychological healthcare.
ISTDP
In many countries ISTDP is one of the official therapy indications
Our teachers and supervisors offer international (continuous) education programs to colleagues, who work in the mental health care sector. Among others these are American, Belgian, Canadian, Dutch, Danish, English, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish and Spanish colleagues.
Many national ISTDP societies/associations/institutes cooperate under the umbrella of the IEDTA, the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association. ISTDP International follows in principal their guidelines for education, registration and re-registration
What exactly is ISTDP
ISTDP is a part of the bigger conglomerate of Psycho-dynamic psychotherapies. The acronym ISTDP is internationally used for Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. Professor Dr. H. Davanloo (Montreal, Canada) devised the method and techniques of ISTDP.
Davanloo´s ISTDP is theoretically based on the psychoanalytical reference realm. However, the structured way in which the therapist and client cooperate in order to assess and deal with the client´s problems differs from the psychoanalytical method and techniques.
ISTDP can be of help to persons, suffering under the burden of a great variety of complaints and problems. For example anxiety complaints, different phobic complaints and disorders, obsessive-compulsive complaints and disorders, post traumatic stress disorders, depressive complaints and disorders, anorectic, boulimic complaints and disorders, etc.
Underneath these complaints and problems we often see our clients suffering from intimacy and autonomy problems. On the basis of prior painful life experiences we all „ learn“ – in different degrees – to avoid intimacy with ourselves and/or with other people. In those cases we do not recognize our feelings (or longings or opinions) because we ignore, neglect them, or we are keeping up appearances, minimizing our true feelings. Others rationalize, intellectualize their feelings away or have the habit to give priority to other people, understanding others, instead of themselves. In some cases one recognizes own feelings, opinions but as these are fused with anxiety and/or guilt, one will subsequently hide them for the outside world.
In ISTDP an equal and active working alliance with the client is central. The therapist will help the client. to become aware of his specific self undermining mechanisms, to become aware of processes that are put into operation by the client to suppress own longings, norms, values, opinions, feelings. And when – on the basis of different concrete situations – the client recognizes these mechanisms, understands their self-defeating function, the therapist can help the patient to quit these self defeating mechanisms, to manage anxiety and to consciously experience feelings, that were formerly suppressed . During this therapy process, often, painful and/or traumatic memories will come tot he forefront. The therapist and client will investigate possible links between these former experiences/interactions with those in the present life oft he client. We call this phase „working through“ ways, in which the client interacted in the past with important others, and how he interacts in the present time with important others. Working through painful emotions until there is no need to suppress them any longer, until the client can make a conscious decision when and to whom he will express his norms, values, opinion, longing, feeling in a constructive way and to whom he will keep the front door closed. During the course of ISTDP, therapist and client will each have their own tasks on the road to success: being important enough to recognize, understand (and deciding when to express or not) own longings, feelings, opinions with love, care, precision and honesty.